{"id":12229,"date":"2023-03-11T20:37:45","date_gmt":"2023-03-11T20:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/?p=12229"},"modified":"2023-03-11T20:37:51","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T20:37:51","slug":"spiritual-thirst-reflection-on-the-samaritan-woman-year-a-third-sunday-of-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/spiritual-thirst-reflection-on-the-samaritan-woman-year-a-third-sunday-of-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00c9FLEXION SUR LA SOIF SPIRITUELLE SUR LA FEMME SAMARITAINE, ANN\u00c9E AU TROISI\u00c8ME DIMANCHE DE CAR\u00caME"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Sunday Mass Readings for March 12, 2023: Third Sunday of Lent, Year A \u2013 Lectionary: 28<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1st Reading<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exodus 17:3-7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responsorial Psalm.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalms 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2nd Reading<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romans 5:1-2, 5-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gospel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John 4:5-42 or John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection of the reading by<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan P. Galligan, SJ<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs God among us or not?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy hasn\u2019t God done <\/em>anything?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long will it be like this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be tempting to criticize the Ancient Jewish people who asked these questions during their sojourn in the desert. Scripture is full of warnings about this \u201chard-hearted\u201d and \u201cfaithless\u201d generation. \u201cThey are a people whose hearts go astray,\u201d God says, \u201cand they do not know my ways.\u201d But I invite you to imagine yourself in a similar situation, dying of thirst in the desert. For those of us in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, where climate change is behind one of the longest and most severe droughts on record, extreme thirst is not a foreign concept. When I see avoidable suffering like this, I too become angry, And I can sympathize with the Ancient Jews who wanted to stone the person (Moses) who got them into this mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But murder will not end this drought. Only water can do that. And murder will certainly not help us answer the deeper, albeit less urgent, question we feel the need to ask in times like these: \u201cIs God among us or not? If so, where?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s gospel tells the story of a woman (we don\u2019t learn her name) who, some biblical scholars believe, was a very successful leader of the early Christian community in Samaria. As the gospel says, \u201cmany of the Samaritans in that town began to believe in [Jesus] because of the word of the woman.\u201d But this woman\u2019s word is the last place many of us would expect to find God. In the society of her time, she was considered inferior three times over: ethnically and religiously because she was from Samaria, as a woman because she lived in in a highly patriarchal society, and morally because of her marital status. Even Jesus\u2019 apostles, those we would expect to know him best, are appalled when they come back from running errands and find him talking to this woman. \u201cDoesn\u2019t he know better?\u201d they might have asked. \u201cWho is she, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, this is the person who brings her people to God. This is the person who knows <\/em>God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we feel like we are dying of thirst, we are tempted to want a God who is predictable, a God we can control, who will give us what we want when we want it. But when we assert control in this way, we exclude people and possibilities. Ultimately, we exclude the very God we are looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our God is a God who wants to care for us but will not be controlled by us, who wants to draw near to us but remains distant when we draw away from others whom we deem inferior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how can we draw closer to God when we are afflicted by thirst, when we feel as if we\u2019ve been led astray, or when we just can\u2019t seem to find God\u2019s presence in our midst? I suggest we listen to the Samaritan woman: the one whom we are tempted to disparage because of her gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality, and the one whom the gospel tells us is actually more in touch with Jesus than his own apostles. She just might be the one who leads us to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By,<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan P. Galligan, SJ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research and Policy Analyst<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecosystems and Climate<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesuit Justice and Ecology Network Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday Mass Readings for March 12, 2023: Third Sunday of Lent, Year A \u2013 Lectionary: 28 1st Reading. Exodus 17:3-7 Responsorial Psalm.  Psalms 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9 2nd Reading. Romans 5:1-2, 5-8 Gospel John 4:5-42 or John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42 Reflection of the reading by Bryan P. Galligan, SJ \u201cIs<\/p>\n

Lire la suite<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflect-articles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajan.africa\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}